I was very disappointed with the kitchen at 57th Fighter Group during my visit. My burger, which I ordered as medium well, came out raw in the middle, as I discovered when I cut it open. The waitress took it back to the kitchen, then returned later with the same burger recooked, cut in pieces as I had left it. Taking a piece of meat that had been at a table and putting it back on the grill seems to me to be poor kitchen practice; it certainly sends a message to the customer that the restaurant doesn't care much about them. They finally sent out a burger that was cooked at least approximately to my request, although I am not sure that it quite met the medium well temperature. All this took quite some time---what should have been 10 minutes ended up taking a half hour.
I made candied ginger a few years ago. It's not something I would do every day but I had a lot of fun doing it. I recently acquired a pressure cooker and it inspired an interesting idea to me: why not make candied ginger in the pressure cooker? It should be very soft and flavorful. Here is the result. I peeled two large ginger roots, cut them into small cubes, and put them in the pressure cooker with heavily sugared water. The traditional method first boils the ginger in plain water to soften it and then again in sugar water to candy it. The resulting candy was very tender but still with the characteristic ginger texture. It was also sweet without being overpowering. The traditional method leaves a lot of sugar crystallized around the ginger. The pressure cooker gives a much more subtle result. The ginger stays moist even after it cools but you can dry it in the oven at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes. That inspired me to dip it in chocolate. While I was in the b...

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